Losing It
by Prime627
Summary: Arcee had been ambushed during the war for Cybertron by Airachnid, tortured for information Arcee didn't know, and then eventually saved. But what actually, really, truly happened to her while Airachnid kept her as a prisoner? (Inspired by Skye1456's fic "Torturous Insanity".)
1. Chapter 1

_The Autobots had been at it for centuries, starting to grow weary of fighting and never winning. They were losing 'bots to the Decepticons, losing supplies, losing hope..._

_ Now they had lost their final femme, a young one called Arcee, due to an ambush. Her partner had taken off after her, vowing to not return until he found her. But Arcee had been tucked away under Cybertron's surface._

_ And the only one that would see her every day for the thousand years she was missing would be Airachnid, Shockwave's latest crack at super-Cybertronians._

Arcee spent her days moving from tied to a cold berth (Sleep Time), tied against a pole while Airachnid fed her spoiled Energon to "keep her strength up for today's activities", and then tied with her arms above her helm, often times for hours before Airachnid decided to return to her. Sometimes she would hang there until well after Airachnid left and a blind drone would come for her to tie her back onto the berth, which was momentarily incredible to Arcee since it was missing his glowing optics. She tried speaking with it, trying to get any response, any voice to help drive the ones out of her helm, but the drone tipped its helm up and showed her the ugly scar over its throat. Airachnid had blinded it and tore its vocodor out with some form of acid.

Arcee sighed and rolled her helm to the other side, staring at the wall. She sighed softly and closed her optics.

But Airachnid went to her as soon as the drone left and she strung the little femme back up. "Give me the attack coordinates."

She had said that one sentence ever since she had her claws on Arcee. That was all Arcee heard from her, and then Airachnid said other things, like _Food_ and _eat up_.

Arcee had begun to hate that sentence. She was too young to be given something as big as attack coordinates, and her team leader had kept her as far away from any combat as he could whenever he could spare a few servos simply to guard the base, other bases, medics while they worked. But when she was captured, she had been with Tailgate on a mission that had been deemed "so easy a sparkling could do it". Someone should have told Tailgate that, because he missed and they wound up fighting the Decepticons servo-to-servo. They were separated, she and Tailgate, and then Arcee had been ambushed by Airachnid while trying to get back with her partner.

It had been years since she had last seen Tailgate, and she was losing hope that he would come to her rescue.

Arcee growled lowly. "I don't know the attack coordinates."

"Give me the attack coordinates."

"I don't know them!"

"Give me the attack coord-"

"_I don't know them!_"

Airachnid smirked at her, then backed out of the cell. For the first time since Arcee arrived in the cell, the only lighting in the cell was turned off and Arcee was left to hang by her arms all night. The drone didn't come to retrieve her, and for days, Arcee hung.

She had been strung up like that for a week before Airachnid returned. Arcee's helm was resting against her arm, and she looked broken, but her optics were shining as bright as ever.

Airachnid remained silent as she just stood in the room. She didn't turn the light on, she didn't even move. She just stared at her for a good hour, then left her.

Arcee was left with the voices in her helm, her optics narrowing in anger, but she could not bring herself to speak. She knew what Airachnid was trying to do, and she wasn't about to give her a servo in assistance.

Airachnid was trying to break her down, make her suffer for holding back unknown information and, mostly, for interrupting her. Arcee didn't know how long she could hold on.

Already her arms were aching, she felt hollow, and her spark was humming softer now in the quiet, damp, dark cell with no window, no heat source, and now no light.

She began to tremble, but she forced her body to be still.

Don't let the demons win, she thought. Don't let the demons win.

So she held on with all she had, held onto Tailgate's voice as he remarked how strong she was.

Yes, she thought. I am strong. Tailgate thought so himself.

I am strong.

But still, there was a nagging little voice deep in her helm that wouldn't let her believe that.

_You'll break soon. You'll see._


	2. Chapter 2

Arcee was growing weary of watching Airachnid stare at her. She had done nothing but stand there and stare for weeks. She wanted to shout at her, but she couldn't make her vocodor work.

And then Airachnid walked forward. She held out a servo as if to stroke Arcee's cheek, but the femme instinctively flinched away, moved her helm to the side. But Airachnid pressed her claw into her cheek, and scratched a nice long gouge into the formerly perfect faceplate. Acid started to bubble in the wound and Arcee tipped her helm back and howled in pain. Somehow, Shockwave had given her the power to both make and tolerate acid. The evidence was left to eat into Arcee's cheek.

Airachnid pulled away after scratching her and she backed out of the room, locking Arcee into the cell once more and went back to pretending that Arcee did not exist.

**ooo**

Arcee hung by her arms as she had for years. She was skinnier. Airachnid hadn't fed her in a week and she worried that Airachnid was gone, or somehow killed, but then she would have been found...or perhaps...she had been forgotten. Perhaps there was no one left to remember her. Perhaps everyone had all died, and she was the last one alive.

But Airachnid came in the evening, unkindly shoving jellied Energon into Arcee's mouth, then unchaining her and letting her drop like a sack of framework to the floor.

"Get up, you useless pile of scrap metal. We're moving, and unless you want to die, you will come and do as you're told."

Arcee could barely lift her helm. She regurgitated the jelly, struggled to get up, and laid back down again. Her legs were useless. She hadn't used them in so long, they had become useless and unfeeling. They had given up while she had come close, but never really submitting to the fact that she was as good as dead.

Airachnid drug her out of the cell by her arm, and doors opened. Prisoners were also drug out by blind and mute drones. Arcee realized that she was not the only one in Airachnid's hold.

But, due to a lack of resources to carry all prisoners, Airachnid killed the weakest, sparing Arcee, and she killed all but one of the blind and mute drones. Then she drug those remaining over Cybertron's bent and splintering plates. Arcee's legs collected a lot of wounds, wounds that wept blue over Cybertron's once gleaming face only to mix with other trails long forgotten.

Somewhere along the way, Arcee had passed out due to the loss of Energon.

When she woke, she was in a new cell. If at all possible, it was damper, darker, and colder than the last.

Airachnid was staring at her, having forced jellied Energon down her throat again to get her to wake. When she saw that Arcee was awake and alert, she left.

Arcee looked down at her legs. They were bandaged, but the bandages were already soaked-through with blue Energon. She let her helm rest on her shoulder and she blinked slowly. The pain kept her awake, though the weariness demanded that her optics closed.

In the end, they half-closed and Arcee made a small moan in pain.

She didn't react to the sounds of agony. Airachnid was making the list of prisoners shorter. The drone was spared, and unfortunately for Arcee, so was she.

**ooo**

Arcee was getting tired, exhausted, and she was seeing things. Seeing Tailgate hanging beside her. Hearing him beg her to look at him. Hearing Airachnid laugh and tell him it was futile.

Then when she would look, Tailgate would still be there, staring at her with scared blue optics.

"What did she do to you? Arcee? Arcee, look at me."

Her helm dropped.

"Arcee, look at me...don't close your optics."

Her optics closed.

Airachnid laughed more, clearly enjoying herself. When the door creaked shut and was locked, Arcee lifted her helm to whine in pain. Her leg wounds were infected, and the acid that Airachnid had put in the wounds simply for her amusement wasn't helping.

Tailgate was cooing to her, never ceasing, no matter what Airachnid did to him.

Then, they both received unusually good care. Arcee had gained some weight, and Tailgate was getting lively again.

That was when Airachnid came, praising Arcee for how strong she was. That was when Arcee knew she was in trouble.

"I believe that no matter what I do to you, you'll never crack. Am I right?"

Arcee glared at her.

"That's what I thought." And she moved closer to Tailgate.

Arcee started to squirm against her bounds. "No. Stop. Don't. Please!"

"You know what I want, dear Arcee."

"I don't know the attack coordinates! I don't!"

Airachnid looked at her, at Tailgate, and back again. Then one of her multiple legs came forward, arching over her helm, and struck Tailgate. It punctured his spark. He died instantly. Arcee doubted he felt a thing.

But that didn't stop her from howling and sobbing as if she had been struck instead of her partner. She pressed her face into her shoulder, hoping Tailgate would stir.

The only thing that moved was the Energon trickling out of his chest and the door as it closed behind Airachnid.

Time seemed to slow down as Arcee watched him bleed out. The Energon drips came slowly and the puddle slowly crept and grew out, searching for the far corners of the room. Arcee begged for him.

"Tailgate?"

He didn't stir.

"Tailgate, look at me."

He didn't lift his helm.

"Tailgate..."

His optics were dim.

Arcee knew that hers would be the same soon. Airachnid would grow bored of her, just as she did with Tailgate. She was simply bored of him, bored of keeping him around. So she killed him.

Arcee would be no different.


	3. Chapter 3

The plan had been perfect. The plan had been perfectly executed.

So how, Arcee wondered with her pain-fogged processor, how had she wound up how she was now, a pole threaded through the middle of both thighs. It was by this pole that she was suspended from now, her helm just grazing the floor. Ever now and then, Airachnid would return and give the newly made Arcee-pendulum a shove.

Arcee thought back to her failed plan.

**ooo**

_Arcee waited until the drone came for her, to bind her wounds again, and splash a little more acid to make the wounds worse. Then she made her move. She wrapped her legs around the drone's neck, swung forward, back, and rotated sharply so that she jerked the body around to the right, but drones were bred to remain standing in one place no matter what._

_ Arcee heard the satisfying _crunch_ as the spinal column in the drone snapped. Then she waited for her breath to come back to her before she clawed at the webbing around her wrists. It snapped easily, and she dropped to her knees. The dead drone served as a cushion, and she layed there for a long time before she finally got up and limped down the hall._

_ She trusted her instincts. She walked up a flight of stairs, common sense urging her on, but in her glee at finally escaping, she forgot a part of her plan._

_ Being silent._

_ She ran down the final hall, seeing light filtering down from cracks in the hall's ceiling. There was a door, and possibly the final flight of stairs!_

_ And then there was pain._

_ She had been tripped. Her ankles were webbed together, and Airachnid was behind her._

_ "Silly little femme. Next time, you'll remember to be silent."_

_ But Airachnid made sure there would never be a next time. With the great strength Arcee expected from Liege Maximo, Airachnid stabbed a pole straight through Arcee's thighs. She was pinned to the floor, so close to the exit, and yet, so far away. She remained like that for days before Airachnid grew weary of Arcee's sobs and after the Decepticon figured out a new way to hold her most prized prisoner._

_ Upside-down from the pole in her thighs._

_ It held her beautifully, and Airachnid applauded her for being the evil genius her "creator" was. She clapped her servos in a giddy way, the way a sparkling might, and then she blew Arcee a sour kiss full of promises for punishment._

_ Arcee was left to sway gently back and forth upside-down, her groans and sharp gasps coming back to her, empty._

**ooo**

Arcee didn't react as Airachnid walked in to feed her. She even opened her mouth to accept the rotted Energon. She even swallowed. She consumed the whole bowl of the jelly, and let Airachnid pat her on the cheek.

Airachnid knew she had won. Arcee, the great and powerful two-wheeler that had held such promise, had been defeated by Airachnid, the barely known Decepticon.

Now she would be known. She would rise higher up the Decepticon ranks than anyone before her, including the Seeker that annoyed her so much with his constant preening.

Nothing could go wrong now, she thought. To prove to Arcee how powerless she was, she left the door wide open, letting Arcee look into the hall.

Arcee had learned to not see the hall. She had trained herself to see something more. A rescuer. A mech.

Tailgate.

She would stare at the hall for hours, imagining, no, no, _seeing_ Tailgate as he played their favorite game.

_I spy with my little optic something...blue._

The giggling concerned and amused Airachnid most. Arcee had truly dropped off the deep-end, so far that even Optimus Prime himself couldn't rescue her from herself.

But what Airachnid didn't know was that Prime's, especially Optimus Prime, always came back for their team, even members they didn't know they had.

Like little femmes that had suddenly disappeared.

Arcee wouldn't have to wait long for someone to come for her, but the team that was coming would face many trials and many battles before they would even come close to saving her. Could she last just a few more weeks?

She giggled again. Tailgate was persistant in his questioning, asking her if he was, in fact, blue instead of red.

Airachnid stood, unknowingly, behind him as she watched Arcee shake her helm and giggle like a sparkling. She slowly tipped her own helm, touched her lower lip with a digit, and she walked away, leaving ghosts and the nearly-dead behind.

**Inspired also by Predatory, and greatly by the fic addressed in the summary.**

**Has anyone else listened to the commentaries for Transformers Prime season one? I recommend, if any of you have the season on DVD as I do, to listen to the commentary for Predatory.**

**But in case you do not, I will let you in on a little secret.**

**Tailgate was actually a slightly edited Cliffjumper. They just altered the helm and added more scratches and flaws to the armor. You'll see (hear). I'm not making this up.**

**So, now you have some sort of an idea of what I'm planning to do.**

**Thanks for reading. I'm loving this fic so much. So proud of it. I'm sohohoho ready to bring in Team Prime and address the question "can Wheeljack fly".**

**Chapter four will be up later today, I promise**

**-Prime627**


	4. Chapter 4

_Optimus Prime was the youngest and smallest Prime yet, though he made up for those factors by being the bravest, kindest, and one of the most gentlest of giants that Cybertron had the honor of carrying on its formerly beautiful surface._

_ And now he was about to prove it to a little femme he didn't know existed until he encountered the remainder of Tailgate's team..._

Arcee didn't know how long she had been swaying back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...Tailgate's body beside her was rotting now. It had hung on for so long, but now it stunk, and badly. Sometimes, when Airachnid didn't come to her with the jelly, Arcee would sway a little harder just to touch the puddle of semifresh Energon and quickly lick it off her digits as if she expected Airachnid to burst into the room and blow her legs off.

Her legs. The holes were infected, of course. They smelled bad. Arcee wondered if she would ever walk again. As she swayed and sucked on her digits like a sparkling, she looked up at them and remembered how fast she used to be able to run before.

She had been beautiful, but now she was damaged, and she doubted anyone could possibly love her now. Or would be able to. Vector Prime was probably preparing himself to come take her soul into the Core, yet days passed and still Arcee remained alert and alive.

Tailgate, the little ghost she had created, was becoming hideous and disfigured. Instead of giving her a warm smile, he now grinned at her with ragged denta and wiggle claws at her in a wave while he tore out his innards and ate them. She would find herself hungry for them, and she would become disgusted at Tailgate, demanding to know why he had gone to The Fallen's side...

But Tailgate wouldn't answer her. He had become like Airachnid, cold and uncaring, even the one in her imagination that taunted her with food while his actual body hung abandoned.

Airachnid, for some reason, had vanished, but Arcee knew better than to hope she had died. Airachnid had bailed on the prison and had left. Decepticons didn't care for their own, and they definitely did not take care of their prisoners.

Arcee was left, abandoned and seemingly forgotten. That was what she thought before the prison blew up.

Smoke was filling the room and Arcee thought she saw movement. Tailgate continued to eat his innards, not caring.

She gagged, which summoned a trio of mechs to investigate.

One was a little scout, black and yellow. He whistled softly, telling her that she would be okay. She didn't think he saw her legs, but the scout was ignoring them on purpose to keep her from squirming around while his companions cut her down.

The oldest was a white, red, and green mech with scars on his mouth and a holder for a grenade on his hip that was empty. He didn't say a thing to her or his companions until the last one dropped down in front of her face.

She would have screamed if her vocodor worked properly. He looked exactly like Tailgate, if Tailgate had horns sprouting from either side of his helm, but unlike Tailgate, his smile was warm and he was gentle as he helped her down. They didn't want to remove the pole without a medic. It was then that Arcee realized it was a search-and-rescue.

They had been searching for her and now they had rescued her. Mission accomplished, they said as they laid her down on a berth on one of the starships that hummed just above the destroyed prison.

Wheeljack, captain of the JackHammer, greeted her with her name and a small nod. Arcee tried to speak, but the red mech, the same brilliant red as Tailgate, soothed her and touched a digit to her lips to silence her. Arcee wanted to rip it off her lips, but she was weak. Too weak to even raise her helm and peek around at the starship.

The scout was talking to someone he referred to, through beeps and clicks common in Cybertronian young, as _sir_.

That was when Arcee passed out due to the pain and the excitement her body just couldn't handle.

**ooo**

Someone was washing her. She woke up to hushed tones and the gentle rasp of a rag over wounded metal. She opened her optics.

"She's waking up," someone said.

"Let her sit up," someone else replied.

She was sat up and she saw her legs.

"We had to remove some of the infected areas, and when you grow stronger, you will rise on your pedes and walk again, even run. You will find you are faster."

She touched her right thigh, the puffiest one. The infected area had been removed alright. There was now an isosceles triangle shape through her thighs. She put her servo through it, felt around, then pulled her servo back and she hugged herself.

Then the one who had just finished talking, a brilliant red and blue mech, gave her a tiny Energon cube. She accepted it, wishing for more as she swallowed all of it. She gave it back to him, expecting more, but he set it aside and offered an apologetic smile. She glared at him. Couldn't he see she was starving? And yet he refused her Energon!

"I'm...thirsty..."

"I know you are, Arcee, but you cannot handle so much Energon yet. Soon, I promise, you will have more than enough Energon."

Arcee just stared at him with hardened optics, but she saw his point. No point in getting sick after drinking delicious Energon.

The red mech, Cliffjumper, picked her up gently. The other mech, the soft-spoken one, led them to the wash racks. The red mech was dismissed after Arcee was transferred from one set of arms to another. Then she was laid in a tub.

The mech cleaned her. She could barely lift her arms, but he was patient with her and he was gentle with her fragile legs. He made small comments, wiggled his digits in the water a bit like he would to a sparkling, and then he lifted her out and quickly bundled her into a towel before she could even process what had occured.

She wanted to walk, but the mech kept her in his arms as he carried her through the base. He laid her down in his massive berth, tucked her in, and bid her a good night's recharge.

Arcee hadn't known she was tired, but as soon as the mech touched her helm in a fond way, her optics dimmed and then closed. She fell into a deep sleep and didn't wake until evening the next day.

The mech she later learned was the Prime, Optimus Prime, was waiting for her to wake. Then he bathed her again, rebound her wounds, and carried her to the training room where he tested her.

As soon as her pedes touched the ground, her legs crumpled up and she fell. He stood behind her patiently as time after time she crumpled to the floor like a towel. Then she got frustrated. He was too patient, too caring, and too gentle. She forced her legs to straighten out and work the way Primus had intended them to, and for a moment she thought she was upright, but Optimus helped her back up into his arms and he carried her back to his berth where she fell asleep due to exhaustion.

The next day was no different. She received a bath, medical attention, and was tested again with no different results. But Optimus persisted, and continued to persist for weeks before Arcee finally stood on her own.

Now she was to walk as far as she could, but one step was like five thousand. She was weary and weak, and she fell to her knees. Optimus went to help her, but she helped herself up. She was as shaky as a sparkling, but she remained on her pedes this time. She let Optimus lift her up and she gratefully curled up in his berth.

Her ration had increased from one tiny cube three times a day to one half-full cube twice a day, two steps behind everyone else instead of three.

Cliffjumper now helped with her exercises to get her legs back in functioning order, and when he was there, Optimus would support one half and he would support the other, and she would go through the motions of walking five times around the room before Optimus and Cliffjumper let her carry a fraction of her weight for five more laps.

Wheeljack kept her entertained with war stories, and when she asked about his little wing-like structures, he let her touch them. He explained that one of his creators, he didn't know which, had been a Seeker. And since his other creator wasn't a Seeker, the coding for wings was nearly lost, and so he wound up with doorwings that weren't doorwings, and they weren't wings either. They were just structures with no purpose, feeling, or use.

While Arcee heard talk of war still going on, she never saw Optimus leave. Then again, she slept most of the day to get her strength back. Apparently they worked out of sight to keep near-constant tabs on their patient.

Finally, the day came where Optimus and Cliffjumper merely held her servos. Then, they let go, and Arcee slowly went from a walk to a jog to a sprint. She was faster than before, just as Optimus had promised, and her legs were stronger as well. She considered thanking Airachnid the nicest way possible for making her stronger, and that was by killing her, but Optimus didn't allow her into the fighting. He kept her in base, which was normally always empty except for the occasional Decepticon prisoner and the only medic.

The prisoners were treated well. They were not bound up like Arcee had been, and they were fed regularily. They were allowed to walk around in their rooms, but they had their weapons systems disabled. Arcee was not allowed to be around them in case she snapped and attacked them.

Optimus came to her one day, and asked if she would like to permenantly stay with Team Prime.

But she took one look around and shook her helm.

Cliffjumper reminded her too much of Tailgate. She wasn't sure if she'd ever be comfortable around him. She accepted the little gifts Team Prime had to give her: one grenade, several cubes of Energon, a commlink unit, and a hug from each member, including the little scout who was destined to tower over her.

She left them, looked back at Cliffjumper, and reminded herself why she couldn't stay.

Tailgate's ghost padded after her, torturing her not by eating himself, but with memories of him that she could never forget.

**Okay, I know I promised this yesterday, but yesterday turned out a different way than what I thought it would. Translation: instead of a quiet night, I went to the mall with a friend and came home around nine at night. I was **_**exhausted**_**, and I wouldn't be able to create a sentence even if I wanted to.**

**I know it doesn't compare to the fic that inspired it, but I hope it was atleast somewhat entertaining.**

**Looking forward to new ideas, references to other awesome fics, and such.**

**-Prime627**


End file.
